Day 2

Last night, I dreamed that I ate dessert and then forgot about my experiment to not eat dessert for a year. I used to have dreams that I was bingeing that were really realistic and disturbing–unfortunately, those often foreshadowed a real binge. Has anyone else experienced this? While I don’t really buy the whole “sugar addiction” thing in the sense of a physiological addiction, I do think there’s a level of psychological/emotional dependence going on. Several times today, I was feeling tired and stressed out and found myself thinking about having a bowl of ice cream or some candy. The real test will be this week at work–the last few pounds I’ve gained are directly attributable to chocolate around the office. I also need to really work on improving my fluids intake–it pathetic. Here’s what I ate today:

No exercise today but marathon training “officially” starts tomorrow. I think lunch was probably heavier than it needed to be but I’ve been feeling low energy all day, which tends to make me want to overeat. I think I have a fast metabolism (I’m tall) and historically, I will lose weight simply by getting my butt in gear exercise and stopping bingeing (although I’ve never been able to do that second part consistently).

My husband and I went and bought some new living room furniture today, which I’m really excited about. We’ve never decorated a place we’ve lived in–I’m not much of a decorator, and have never even hanged anything on the walls. Our apartment is pretty depressing, but we’ve never been inclined to spend the money on nice furniture. This morning I thought–we just need to do this. We got a new sectional, area rug, and ottoman–it’s a good start. Our apartment is pretty small–1 bedroom, less than 700 square feet, and we’ve decided that we plan on staying for the next several years, so we might as well make it nice. My husband and I will both be turning 30 over the next year, and it’s about time that our apartment lost its “bachelor pad” feel. Additionally, I don’t have a lot of hobbies/modes of self-expression. Maybe if I could foster an interest in decorating it would be beneficial? Though that seems unlikely (my interest growing up was earthworms).

One of the topics that has been on my mind a lot lately are my complicated feelings about eating disorders treatment. I recently watched a documentary “Thin” (I think that’s what is called but no 100% sure) about an eating disorders treatment center. An epilogue to the documentary indicated that treatment had been completely ineffective for all of the women portrayed on the documentary. While some people–including myself–successfully “recover” from eating disorders, I’m not convinced that treatment necessarily plays a huge role in that. Speaking firsthand, I can say that weight restoration is key for individuals with anorexia, only because you really can’t think clearly when your body fat drops below a critical percentage. So that part of “treatment” is important. And I completely understand the importance of some of the messages that come through in eating disorder treatment about body image, blah blah blah. But some of the messages I received were so out of touch with the weight obsessed society we live in that they weren’t actually useful. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, or what I would propose as an alternative to current treatments. I think that the focus on “meal plans” is not necessarily helpful for people who are obsessed with food, especially because most of the “meal plans” do not even remotely resemble how normal people actually eat, and make anxious people with eating disorders even more mistrustful of individuals “treating” them. For me, I just got to a point where other things in my life were more important to me than my weight, so that I wouldn’t screw up my life by spending all of my time/energy dieting and exercising. I would never go on a super low calorie diet now because it would make it impossible for me to function. I don’t think that treatment necessarily helped me get to this point–I think it would’ve happened anyway. But I’ve never found therapy particularly useful.

OK, I’m officially rambling. But if anyone reading has any thoughts about this, I’d be interested in hearing some other perspectives.